St Albans station upgrade plans announced

WORK on extending the platforms at St Albans City Station as part of the multi-billion pound Thameslink upgrade started at the weekend. The Thameslink Programme will see the introduction of 12-car trains that will help increase capacity by 50 per cent. Bu

WORK on extending the platforms at St Albans City Station as part of the multi-billion pound Thameslink upgrade started at the weekend.

The Thameslink Programme will see the introduction of 12-car trains that will help increase capacity by 50 per cent. But that means building over four km of new platforms along the route to serve the new fleet of longer trains.

Network Rail engineers will be extending all four platforms at St Albans Station by a total of 210ms. The work is expected to be completed next summer with passengers able to board the first longer trains in 2012.

The work at St Albans follows the completion of similar work at Luton Airport Parkway and Jim Crawford, Network Rail Thameslink Programme director, said: "The congestion-busting Thameslink expansion will deliver what passengers need - more capacity, more seats and less crowding.

"St Albans is one of the busiest stations on this route outside the capital so I'm sure rail users will welcome the start of work to allow longer trains to call in future.